Even the trees had a bad time in the Flint area this winter

GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- It was cold. It was dark. It seemed like it would never end.

When the snow finally melted from the record-breaking winter in Flint this year, it wasn't just people licking their wounds.

Trees and plants got pummeled too, many outright destroyed.

"You got hit hard with the ice storm," said Bert Cregg, a Michigan State University professor specializing in tree physiology and nursery management.

The December ice storm left days of thick and heavy ice on trees, breaking limbs and in some cases felling entire trees, Cregg said.

It was a brutal, long winter that broke several records.

The total snowfall for 2013-14 so far is 83.4 inches in the Flint area. That's all the snow that fell since last July, and is almost seven feet of snow. The record that broke stood for 39 years. In the 1974-75 winter, 82.9 inches fell.

There were other records broken this winter, too, in the Flint area. It was the coldest winter on record: 24.0 being the average temperature, beating the 1962-63 recordof 25.4. We also had the most consecutive days with snow coverage: 101 days, well beyond the previous record of 88 days set in 1963

On top of that, many trees suffered from winter burn; a brownish, dead-looking spot on the limbs caused by extreme wind and cold.